U.S. Congressional Wartime Commission Targets Armed Contractorsby Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatchJune 23rd, 2010This week, almost a decade after the U.S. "War on Terror" began, the Commission on Wartime Contracting held two days of hearings into the role of private contractors in conducting and supporting war. The Congressional witness table included Aegis, DynCorp and Triple Canopy. Curiously, Blackwater was not called; and the CEO of Torres Advanced Enterprise Solutions failed to appear.

Agility Attempts to Vault Fraud Chargesby Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatchFebruary 1st, 2010Agility, a Kuwait-based multi-billion dollar logistics company spawned by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, is facing criminal charges for over-billing the U.S. taxpayer on more than $8.5 billion worth of food supply contracts in the Iraq war zone. If the lawsuit is successful, the company could owe the U.S. government as much as $1 billion.

Is Halliburton Forgiven and Forgotten? Or How to Stay Out of Sight While Profiting From the War in Iraqby Pratap Chatterjee, TomDispatch.comJune 3rd, 2009At Halliburton's recent annual shareholders meeting in Houston, all was remarkably staid as the company celebrated its $4 billion in 2008 operating profits, a striking 22% return at a time when many companies are announcing record losses.
Just three months ago, however, Halliburton didn't hesitate to pay $382 million in fines to the U.S. Department of Justice as part of the settlement of a controversial KBR gas project in Nigeria in which the company admitted to paying a $180 million bribe to government officials.

US: Contracting Boom Could Fizzle Outby Dana Hedgpeth, Washington Post April 7th, 2009The surge in the U.S. military contracting workforce would ebb under Defense Secretary Gates's budget proposal as the Pentagon moves to replace private workers with full-time civil servants. The move could affect companies such as CACI and SAIC. "We are right-sizing the defense acquisition workforce so we can improve our contract oversight and get a better deal for the taxpayers," said the Pentagon's director of defense procurement and acquisition policy.

Inheriting Halliburton's Army: What Will Obama Do With KBR?by Pratap Chatterjee, TomDispatch.comFebruary 22nd, 2009President Obama will almost certainly touch down in Baghdad and Kabul in Air Force One sometime in the coming year to meet his counterparts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he will just as certainly pay a visit to a U.S. military base or two. Should he stay to eat with the troops, he will no less certainly choose from a menu prepared by migrant Asian workers under contract to Houston-based KBR, the former subsidiary of Halliburton.

US: Army Overseer Tells of Ouster Over KBR Stirby James Risen, New York TimesJune 17th, 2008Charles M. Smith, the senior civilian overseeing the multibillion-dollar contract with KBR during the first two years of the war, says he was ousted for refusing to approve payment for more than $1 billion in questionable charges to KBR. The Pentagon has recently awarded KBR part of a 10-year, $150 billion contract in Iraq.

US: Inside the world of war profiteers
by David Jackson and Jason Grotto|Tribune reporters, Chicago TribuneFebruary 21st, 2008Hundreds of pages of recently unsealed court records detail how kickbacks shaped the war's largest troop support contract months before the first wave of U.S. soldiers plunged their boots into Iraqi sand.

IRAQ: Will Iraq Kick Out Blackwater?by Adam Zagorin and Brian Bennett, TIME MagazineSeptember 17th, 2007TIME has obtained an incident report prepared by the U.S. government describing a fire fight Sunday in Baghdad in which at least eight Iraqis were reported killed and 13 wounded. The loss of life has provoked anger in Baghdad, where the Interior Ministry has suspended Blackwater's license to operate around the country.

US: Iraq convoy was sent out despite threatby T. Christian Miller, LA TimesSeptember 3rd, 2007Senior managers for defense contractor KBR overruled calls to halt supply operations in Iraq in the spring of 2004, ordering unarmored trucks into an active combat zone where six civilian drivers died in an ambush, according to newly available documents.

US: Army to examine Iraq contractsby Richard Lardner, Associated Press August 29th, 2007The Army will examine as many as 18,000 contracts awarded over the past four years to support U.S. forces in Iraq to determine how many are tainted by waste, fraud and abuse.

Philippine News: R.P. probes ‘trafficked OFWs’ in Iraqby Beting Laygo Dolor, Philippine NewsAugust 8th, 2007President Gloria Arroyo has ordered an investigation into reports that Filipino workers were forced to go to Iraq to work on the U.S. embassy there despite a ban on them traveling there. A report from the watchdog organization CorpWatch said that “other South Asians” were indeed working for First Kuwait Trading and Contracting in Iraq.

US: As Iraq Costs Soar, Contractors Earn Record Profits by Eli Clifton, Inter Press Service News AgencyAugust 2nd, 2007In a report to lawmakers earlier this week, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office found that the war in Iraq could cost U.S. taxpayers over a trillion dollars when the long-term costs of caring for soldiers wounded in action, military and economic aid for the Iraqi government, and ongoing costs associated with the 190,000 troops stationed in Iraq are totaled up.

US: The Rise and Fall of a War Profiteerby Sarah Anderson, AlterNetJuly 13th, 2006Bulletproof vest maker David H. Brooks' reign as America’s most ostentatious war profiteer does appear to be over. On July 10, the DHB Board of Directors issued a terse statement to the effect that Brooks had been put on indefinite “administrative leave” pending the outcome of unspecified investigations.